Newt Gingrich advises GOP midterm candidates to tie every Democrat to Biden record

Newt Gingrich, the architect of the red wave that swept Republicans to power in the House of Representatives in the 1994 midterms, has some advice for GOP candidates hoping to reclaim control of Congress in the 2022 midterms.

"Tie every campaign to Biden," advised the former Speaker of the House in an interview on the John Solomon Reports podcast.

"I talk about the Biden/Warnock ticket in Georgia," said Gingrich, who represented Georgia's 6th Congressional District for 20 years. "I would talk about the Biden/Kelly ticket in Arizona."

Georgia Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock, who won a special election to the Senate on Jan. 5, 2021, is running for reelection in 2022 against Republican Herschel Walker, the University of Georgia football legend.

In Arizona, Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly is running in 2022 for his first full term in the Senate after winning a special election in 2020 to finish the term of the late John McCain.

"I'd ask the question: 'Why would Kelly vote for 87,000 new IRS agents and no new border patrol agents?'" Gingrich said. "This would tie the Biden administration's failures to the Democrat candidates running for office under this administration."

Another example Gingrich provided was the Biden/Masto ticket in Nevada, where incumbent Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto is running for reelection against Republican Adam Laxalt, former Nevada attorney general and grandson of the late Paul Laxalt, who long represented the state in the Senate.

"I tell every candidate to go stand at a gas station or a grocery store," Gingrich explained. "And every person you're going to talk to is going to be mad at Joe Biden. And just remind them that this campaign is about their family, their budget, their standard of living and their chance to have a job."

Gingrich credited his knowledge of campaign strategy to working with Ronald Reagan in 1974. 

"The lessons I learned with Reagan were very simple, and we applied it in 1994: The bigger the issue, the better we do," Gingrich recalled. "The more we are talking about people's lives, the better we do."

Gingrich was asked about the possibility of Republicans picking up a senate seat in Nevada. 

"I think Adam Laxalt may be the best prepared Senate candidate in the country," he said. "He's been attorney general, and he's run statewide, so he gets it. He's thought about this race for several years. His opponent, Democrat Cortez Masto, I think is in bad shape."

Gingrich predicted that Dr. Mehmet Oz would probably end up beating John Fetterman in the Pennsylvania Senate race, referring to Fetterman as the "most radical  Democratic Senate candidate in the entire country."

"I actually think that Dr. Oz is going to end up beating his opponent, because  the radicalism that the Democrats are putting out is so bad," Gingrich concluded.